Microstory 2128: Carve Out Some Real Time

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

My therapist session went pretty well, though there’s really nothing interesting for me to tell you about. I told her that I was from another universe, but we didn’t get into it yet. We didn’t even get into my arrest. We basically pretended like I was a perfectly normal thirtysomething man who had a relatable childhood, and was starting a new job. We discussed my upbringing, my educational background, and my past work experience. She just wanted to get to know me before trying to give me any advice, or help me through my issues. We obviously didn’t have time to go over my entire life story, especially not since I first had to spend some time filling out paperwork, and setting up a payment arrangement, so I’m sure the next session will basically be the same thing. So nothing juicy to report yet, you’ll just have to wait. In the meantime, let me tell you about my new apartment, which I finalized today. It’s on the edge of the city, on the Kansas side, which makes it fairly close to the intermittent jail facility, as well as the parole offices. Sometimes Leonard will be visiting me at home, sometimes I’ll have to go to his office, and sometimes we’ll meet somewhere in the middle. This is a really great location, and I’m satisfied with my choice. The building has a ton of amenities, which I never used before, but which I’m sure I’ll start now. There’s a gym, and now that I’m no longer immortal, I’ll probably have to start worrying about my health a little more. It includes a lap pool, and that’s all it’s for. While it’s okay for children to live here, this place advertises mostly to busy working adults; single people, and childless couples. There’s a playroom that can cater to various ages, though there’s no dedicated supervisor on site, so parents can’t just drop off their young ones, and go out. The complex also has a communal area for eating, which is connected to a few popular restaurants, though these restaurants are not technically part of the complex; they just built them within its walls. They’re open to the public. My company doesn’t foresee me needing to meet clients in person, and even if I do, I’ll probably have to go to them, but if one of them happens to be in the area, the second floor also has offices that can be rented by the hour, so that’s pretty handy.

I pretty much had to get this process fast-tracked, because I needed to move in today. I’m spending all day tomorrow going through some pre-onboarding procedures for my new job, including a formal background check, even though I don’t have much of a verifiable background. I really wanted to finish this all up by the end of the week, so I can let the FBI off the hook for my expenses. I also didn’t want to schedule anything for Friday. That’s the day that I go back into jail, and even though I don’t report until the evening, I really don’t want to start making any commitments that could potentially turn into conflicts. I may feel more comfortable in the future, or I may just always leave that day available for safety. The beauty of my new job is that I can set my own hours, which means Mondays could be their own buffer too, if need be. Fortunately, in terms of the apartment, I don’t have any belongings, so once they handed me the key, I just walked right in. The FBI is continuing to let me use their laptop for now, but depending on how long the pre-onboarding takes tomorrow, I may go shopping at some point. If I have to do that on Friday instead, that will probably be okay, because I could always leave the store early if I lose track of time. It probably won’t be until Tuesday until I can carve out some real time to go shopping, for lamps, and groceries, and whatnot. I spent my whole life waiting for the weekend to do extra things like all this. It’s going to take some time before I’m used to reversing that, and not forgetting absent-mindedly that my weekends are no longer free, and won’t be for several months.

Microstory 2127: Too Tired to Relax

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

I accepted one of the jobs, and respectfully declined the others. I’ll be working from home, which is something that I always wanted to do before all this time travel and universe-hopping. It saves on gas, and other transportation, and it allows me to work for anyone in the world. I thought I was going to be able to tell you what I’ll be doing, but my employer doesn’t want me to divulge such information. They may allow me to say certain, carefully crafted things at a later date, but for now, I should just treat it as privileged information. They didn’t make me sign an NDA, but I’m obviously going to respect their decision. All I can say is that I’m allowed to work whenever I want unless I’m scheduled for a meeting or a call, and it’s by the week, rather than the day. So if I get all of my work done at the beginning of the week, I can take a couple of days off, and still get paid the same, because I covered my hours, and was sufficiently productive. We’ll see how it goes. Before I left my original universe, people were pushing for a four-day workweek, but I’ve always believed that it would be better to work shorter hours across more days than to get entire days off. I would rather take minimal breaks in between than work my butt off non-stop until I crash on the weekend. I’m too tired to relax at that point, ya know? I know that sounds dumb, but if you’ve ever been there, you understand what I mean. Anyway, most of my last several posts have been on the longer side, so I think I’ll just do a little of that relaxing that I was talking about. I’ll have more to say tomorrow, because my new job isn’t the only thing I have going on. I’m this close to selecting an apartment. I found a nice complex with fully furnished units, but new, so I don’t have to worry about others having gotten their grubby little hands on the furniture—or worse—smoking around it. I’ll still clean everything. I’ll also need to tell you what my therapy was like, because I’m writing this prior to my evening session. I think I’ve already told you that, as a patient, I’m none too worried about the confidentiality of psychological and medical treatment. I expect my provider to respect my privacy, but I’ll say whatever I want about myself, so you’ll be hearing about my progress in the next coming months.

Microstory 2126: Called it Hustling

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

Orientation didn’t do a very good job of preparing me for what jail was going to be like for the rest of the weekends that I’m going to have to go through it. For one, I didn’t have a cellmate before. I knew that I would this time, but I had forgotten what it was like to live with someone else in such close quarters, and in fact, they’ve never been that close for me anyway. I don’t want to say anything bad about the guy, but I have trouble getting along with other people. That’s just a general rule when it comes to my personality. I don’t see the world in a normal way, and that gets on people’s nerves. He didn’t try to hurt me or exploit me, but I don’t think we’re going to be lifelong friends either. I ran into even more personality clashing once I got out into the common area. There are people in there from all walks of life. While individual cells are not co-ed, the facility is as a whole, which I prefer, but as woke as I am, I worry about women being around men a lot more than I would have to in a perfect world. I found myself watching them to make sure they weren’t about to be harassed, which probably only served to make me look like a perverted creeper. That’s not the image that I want to give off to people. They already have a bad impression of me. Word had spread about my special situation. Some of the things that they heard are true, and some of them are not, so I spent a lot of time fielding questions, and clarifying inaccuracies. Even the people who understood what happened weren’t happy with me.

Some thought that I got off easy, and should have been sent to prison, or received some other harsher sentence. Others called me a narc for helping the FBI catch the teenage girl’s abductors, even if they agreed on principle that kidnapping toddlers is wrong. Some were specifically bothered that I was given such special treatment, like the hotel room that the government paid for, or the legal assistance that I got from an employer that I worked for as nothing more than a janitor for a couple of weeks. Most of them, I would say, don’t like that I run this here website, feeling that I’m exploiting them for money, and misrepresenting the justice system. I try to tell them that I’ve not been doing that, but only speaking my truth; and being clear that this is what I have been experiencing, but they don’t see it that way. Some of them have read some of it, and some only heard about it, so they all have their own impressions that I don’t think I can change. I’m pretty sure I’m the most famous person in there, which did not even occur to me. Yes, the number of daily visitors for my site has been increasing, but this service provider doesn’t tell me where these people are, and it certainly doesn’t show who they are, so I didn’t go into jail thinking that I may have to worry about my reputation. There were a few proponents of mine, if you can believe it. They acknowledged that there was nothing wrong with keeping a blog, and that I’m not the only one in the world to do it. A few popular video bloggers have similar stories to share, though usually after the fact, rather than while it’s happening. My advocates called it hustling, and encouraged others not to criticize me for trying to make a buck, which is the most common reason for anyone to be locked up in a place like that, so they should all be able to relate to leaning into one’s strengths. That makes some sense, and I appreciate the sentiment.

I was hoping to just keep my head down, and serve my time without making trouble, but it’s always going to find me. I’m going to be doing this for the next 20 weeks until I’m finished with my thousand hour jail time. It could get better as they get used to me, or it could get worse. Hell, just writing these words right now could just piss people off even more, including those who were kind of on my side before. But either way, I’m not going to stop, because this is part of my rehabilitation. It’s a form of accountability that the courts are exploring for future use. For my part, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I’m sure different people would have a different perspective, but taking a lighter sentence in exchange of keeping an accountability blog? That has to be better, right? I should sure think so. Even if you’re not a good writer, that’s got to be preferable. There could be minimums for word count, or something, maybe, but hopefully no limits on grammar mistakes, or requirements for flow. That last sentence didn’t flow well. It shouldn’t be a form of forced education. Some people hate school, myself included. I dunno, maybe nothing will come of it. I should really just focus on my own progress right now. Here are a few updates in that regard. I found a therapist, and will be meeting with her on Tuesdays and Thursday. I’ll also probably be signing up for group sessions on weekends, but I’m not ready to start those just yet. I have regular meetings with my parole officer on Wednesdays, and he’ll work with my work schedule once that’s all figured out. I’ve narrowed it down to two jobs, but by the time you read this, I will have probably decided, so I’ll go over that later this week when we all finalize the decision. I just need a few questions answered before I feel comfortable choosing one over the other.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 22, 2443

« < » > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

With their advanced substrates, the team was capable of surviving any number of harsh environments, but that wasn’t something that they were going to seek out on purpose. It was really only something they should use when they had no other choice, and this wasn’t such a case; it was a test. The reframe engine was ready, but there was still a chance that it would vaporize the whole ship upon initiation of reframe speeds. So they didn’t want to be anywhere near it when they first turned it on. Ramses created an interfacing computer, which would allow him to operate the Vellani Ambassador from Ex-382, where it was safer. It wasn’t safe, per se, because the world itself was dangerous in its own special way, but it was manageable for a period of time since they were staying within the self-contained atmosphere of their pocket dimension, and because they had vacuum suits for excursions.

The entire surface of Ex-382 was a toxic wasteland. No one lived here, and hopefully they never did. They at least didn’t detect any signs of civilization here, except for the piles and piles of garbage. It was all over the place, randomly strewn about. The smell was unbearable, even here at the South Pole, where there wasn’t as much as there was elsewhere. This wasn’t just a planet-wide landfill. They dumped truly dangerous materials here, namely radioactive waste. By the time the ship Extremus was built, fusion power was ubiquitous and unremarkable, which meant that Bronach Oaksent would have been able to utilize it as soon as he went back in time, and began to build his empire in the Goldilocks Corridor. There should be no real reason for him to make any plans that included nuclear fission power plants. It was a perfectly fine alternative for Earth during its developmental years, but when one was starting from scratch, it just didn’t make much sense.

One of the hardest obstacles to overcome when pursuing fusion and antimatter solutions to energy needs was manufacturing the stuff. It didn’t exactly grow on trees. That was why it took so long for these both to be adopted, even when power generation techniques were perfected. Mining fissile elements was not easy, but it was relatively straightforward. Hydrogen was the lightest element in the universe, which was why it literally floated away, making it difficult to capture, and even to store. Still, Oaksent was an immortal who came from the future, and had untold time to formulate his new civilization. Using resources to maintain the infrastructure for nuclear fission production was probably only done as yet another form of control over his people. He didn’t have to use it, but making people labor away in the mines, in the plants, and on the ships that brought all the waste here, was keeping everyone reliant on him, and not letting them be too happy. He didn’t like happy people. That much was clear from whatever psychological profile they could cook up in their collective headcanons. He wasn’t dumping the waste on the planets where people lived at least. That should also be in his profile, that he didn’t want his people to die; not prematurely anyway.

“Ugh, I can still smell it,” Marie noted.

“Switch off your olfactory receptors,” Ramses instructed. He was tweaking the interface system, making sure that he was linked to every single system on board the Ambassador, no matter how small or seemingly inconsequential.

“That...what? That’s something we can do?” she questioned.

“Did no one read the manual?” Ramses asked with a sigh.

“Be careful,” Leona warned Marie, and the rest of the team currently present. Smell is highly linked to breathing, and also serves the evolutionary purpose of alerting you to smells that could lead to death. Don’t keep it off all the time. You may still get sick, and just not know it.”

“So...” Marie pressed.

“You can shut it off right now because of the smell,” Leona allowed. “I would lock up our suits, but we have to keep them close and accessible in case of emergency. Just remember to turn it back on once we live. I’ll remember to clean and disinfect the suits thoroughly later.”

“I’ll do that,” Mateo volunteered. “You have more important concerns to worry over, Captain.”

“Did you guys know that Earth is 70% water? I’ve never seen that much water in my life.” Korali was still reading about Earth from the central archives, and had come to the conclusion that all of these simple facts were not likely to be lies that the team made up in order to brainwash her, but that it was the other way around. They were trying to show her what the galaxy was really like, and even though she had by no means switched sides already, she was starting to accept that some of the things that she was brought up to believe were not entirely—or maybe not at all—accurate.

“Hmm. You’re right,” Mateo realized. “The worlds that we’ve gone to have been mostly barren, with fairly little water. The resort world had the most, but they were nowhere near the levels of Earth from the orbital images that I’m remembering.”

“More control,” Leona guessed. She was spraying an air purifier on their suits to mask some of the terrible smell until they could be fully detailed.

“I’m ready,” Ramses announced. “What about the backup?” Leona asked him.

“It’s been coded, and will only take a year to manufacture,” he answered.”

“The pod is fueled?”

Ramses laughed. “It’s fine. It’ll get us into space. I wouldn’t let us go into this half-prepared.” The dimensional generator was attached to one of the personal pods. These were capable of traveling through a star system in a matter of months, and landing on an orbital, maybe to refuel hydrogen levels, or to manufacture other structures, or just to wait for rescue. They weren’t really designed to launch from the surface of a massive terrestrial planet, but they were technically capable of it. It would use nearly its entire reserve of isotopes to make it happen, but it was better than staying here if the Vellani Ambassador was destroyed during the test. Ramses planned to install teleporters on them, but that would also require temporal batteries or something, because they didn’t use any less fusion power than the rocket equation demanded for a regular launch, so it wasn’t like that solved the problem. Hopefully, the test of the reframe engine would go perfectly, and none of this would matter.

“I appreciate all of your hard work,” Leona told him. “It does not go unnoticed. Go ahead and start the countdown.”

Ramses switched on all of the camera feeds, including the satellite that they had dropped out to watch the event from the outside. He started counting down from eleven, hovering his hand over the button. Everyone held their breath, including Korali, who managed to peel herself away from her studies long enough to bear witness. “Three, two, one, max.”

The ship disappeared in a flash of light. They all looked at the other views now, which were coming in from the interior. The bridge looked perfectly normal, and was completely intact. The corridors and rooms were all still fine. The camera from the engine room was a problem at first, which prevented everyone from exhaling. It was showing them snow for the first several seconds until the spatio-temporal distortion resettled, and the image returned to normal. The engine was holding as it was meant to. It was vibrating at an incredibly high frequency; so high, in fact, that it was imperceptible to human vision, even with these advanced eyes that they had. If the ship was going to vaporize, it should have done it by now due to the immense stress that these intense oscillations were causing the machine to experience. Still, they wanted to be sure that the nanosealant was permanent, and not merely holding temporarily.

For the next three hours, the Ambassador flew away from them, managing to make it out about 15,000 astronomical units. The engine then shut off for an hour while an army of microbots spread all over the engine to check for nanofractures. Leona knew exactly where the original ruptures were. If the bots found these to have returned, the smart ones here would know that the sealant hadn’t fully worked. If they found new ruptures, that would tell them that there was some kind of systemic issue that might not be repairable by what they had, or by any efforts at all. By this time, most of the group had begun to breathe again. Mateo and Marie occupied their time teaching Korali how to play RPS 101 Plus. Ramses worked on other projects while he kept an eye on the quantum data coming through from the diagnostics. Leona proverbially held her breath the whole time as she focused on nothing but the data. It was her only concern. If this wasn’t successful, they could build a new ship, but their plan to free the people of the Corridor from its despot would have to be placed on hold indefinitely until they regathered resources.

“How’s it lookin’?” Marie asked after their game was over, and Mateo’s sponge was finally too bigged by her wall.

“I think we’ll be safe. We’ll know in another four hours,” Leona answered. The ship would make the three-hour trip back here, and then go through the whole diagnostic process all over again. Only then could they leave for Ex-

“Good,” Mateo decided, still bitter about losing the game. “I’m ready to go.”

“Did y’all know that something called a cow has four stomachs?” Korali asked.

« < » > Table of Contents

Fluence: Monarch (Part VII)

< > Entire Story

Generated by Google Gemini text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

Weaver stepped towards Misha Collins, who looked at her with some level of familiarity, suggesting that he had been here before, or had at least seen her somewhere. He wasn’t shocked or scared, but more annoyed. She reached out to shake his hand, but pulled it away before he could reach back. “Sorry. First. Do you know who we are?”

“You’re Holly Blue, Goswin Montagne, Eight Point Seven Point Two, and Briar. I never learned his last name.”

“Have you been to this location before?” Weaver pressed.

Misha looked around. “Yes. About a month ago.”

“I wish I knew which kind of month we’re talking about,” Weaver muttered to herself. That is, had it also been three months in the Ediacaran period? Understanding whether the disparate time periods were somehow linked to one another could help prevent this from happening again. She reached her hand out once more, but pulled back yet again at the last second. “Sorry, do you like...salmon?”

“I suppose I do, as much as anyone,” Misha said, confused.

“I didn’t say salmon,” Weaver tried to clarify, “I said salmon.” This was a test of sorts. When a time traveler encountered someone whose understanding of time was in question, pointedly asking them whether they liked salmon should indicate at least a baseline. If they thought that they were only talking about the actual fish, they probably didn’t know anything, or perhaps just not very much.

“I’m sorry, I don’t hear the difference,” Misha admitted. He was a human, and while this obviously wasn’t his first time around the block, other shifted selves of this group had so far kept him pretty well in the dark about the details.

“Holly Blue,” she echoed, finally shaking his hand, “but you can call me Weaver.”

“You can call me Castiel, if you want. A lot of people prefer it.”

“We need to get you home, Mister Collins,” Goswin said, also stepping forward. “If you’ve met others like us, and returned home, then they must have figured out how to do it.”

“They just surrounded me in a circle, closed their eyes, and then I was home.”

“That’s all it was?” Eight Point Seven asked.

“Oh.” Misha pointed to Weaver. “You tapped something on this refrigerator, and said something about a bubble.”

“I don’t know how he got through the bubble in the first place,” Weaver began, “but we’ll probably have to drop it to send him back. It would be the only safe way to do it. But we should be quick. We never know when other shifted selves will show up. We could have just missed the group that came before us. Measuring time is difficult. I don’t even keep a clock in here, except for my special watch. I may have left it somewhere...”

“Do what you gotta do,” Goswin requested. “Let’s make this quick. We’ll try to send him back where he belongs, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll just go with him.”

“Wait, there was one more thing,” Misha remembered. “You gave me this.” He knelt down and pulled something off of his shoelace aglet, handing it to Weaver.

She inspected it. “This is a temporal tracker. She probably used it to make sure that you were returned to where you belonged, instead of Belgium, or something. You weren’t meant to keep it; that’s why you were able to break through the bubble.”

“I must have missed that part,” Misha said. “I was looking at the sea cucumber.”

Weaver looked over at the glass. “That’s not a cucumber. What was the date?”

“The first time it happened was January 11, 2011,” Misha answered. “This time, it was February 25.”

She handed him the tracker back. “All right. Wait thirty minutes, and then step on it. I mean exactly thirty minutes. Set your watch to it.”

“I understand,” Misha promised.

“Okay.” Weaver went over to the refrigerator, and started tapping on the screen. Blast doors dropped down over the glass, to block the view of the water, and its sea creatures. She kept tapping on it, causing the space around them to shimmer, implying that the temporal bubble was now down. They all felt a small lurch in their stomachs as a result. Still, Weaver kept tapping on the fridge. They started to hear a persistent beep from down the hallway, the exact source of which was not clear.

“I think your smoke detector needs a new battery,” Misha guessed.

“It’s fine, we like fire,” Weaver said oddly. “You heard the man. Let’s put him in a circle.” They all came together, and held hands, even Briar, who wanted to fix this just as much as the rest of them.

Goswin was the captain here, and even though Weaver knew a lot more about this stuff, he needed to step on up. “We’re trying to get our new friend here back to February 25, 2011. February 25 in...”

“Vancouver. You don’t need to know my exact address; anywhere there is fine.”

“Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada,” Goswin said. “Everyone think about that, and nothing else.”

They shut their eyes instinctually, and focused on the goal. None of them wanted to open their eyes for fear of breaking concentration, but success was fairly obvious when they felt a short burst of wind, and heard the flap of wings. They each peeked with one eye, and found there to only be three others in the room. Weaver checked the tracker output on the fridge. “He’s home.”

“What’s to stop it from happening again?” Goswin asked. “It happened once before, it could happen a third time, and more, and nothing can stop it.”

“You hear that beeping noise?” Weaver posed.

“Yeah?” Briar answered in the form of a question.

Weaver sucked her teeth a little. “We should go. Oh, there’s my watch.”

They climbed out of the bunker, and back onto the surface. One set of their shifted selves was standing out there already, with their version of Weaver trying to unlock the door using the secret boulder switch. “Weaver!One,” she acknowledged with a nod of her head.

“Weaver!Two,” the first Weaver replied.

“Self-destruct?”

“Had to be done.”

“How long?”

Weaver!One looked back at the steps as the hatch was closing up. “It’s soon enough. We should all go.”

“We came here for a reason,” the other Briar pointed out.

“The cons outweigh the pros,” Weaver!One tried to explain. “Now hustle off. Don’t let us get mixed up with each other.”

When Weaver!One tried to walk away, Weaver!Two took her by the arm. “Don’t go back to the Nucleus.” Her eyes darted over to the first Goswin. “One of them has taken his job a little too seriously. We barely escaped.”

“One of the Goswins?” Weaver!One asked.

“Just don’t go to the Nucleus,” she reiterated. “At least one group ended up on Dardius, where they were forced to watch some bizarre propaganda films. They’re taking the Reality Wars very seriously, they think we should join, and they have a way of keeping us from shifting away.” She didn’t say anything more about it.

The two groups separated from each other, and disappeared. At least that was what presumably happened. The first version of the crew leapt away first, leaving the newcomers’ fates in question. Perhaps they would go down into the bunker, halt the self-destruct sequence, and start the whole cycle over again. Misha Collins could spend the rest of his life being shifted back and forth to the Ediacaran period, altering future events irrevocably. It was possible that every other Weaver or Holly Blue who took her copy of the crew to that place inevitably made the same choice to destroy it, only for her plan to be unknowingly thwarted by the next copy. Time and reality were now defined by chaos. That was only meant to be the expected end state of the universe, not the beginning of it, nor the middle.

“This is where you grew up?” Eight Point Seven asked. They were standing by a pond in the middle of a small field, with a forest all around them.

“Monarch, Belgium,” Goswin confirmed. “Population: zero.”

“Your family was the only one here?” Eight Point Seven continued the interview.

“There were others...until the very end. In the late 21st century, when they started erecting all the arcological megastructures, of course most people eventually moved to them, or they wouldn’t have been successful. It was the rewilding effort that did it. As antienvironmentalists started to be turned over to death, it became easier and easier to convince people that giving the land back to nature was the only ethical choice given our technological ability to accomplish it. They left their homes, and made new ones. The cities disappeared, both in name, and in infrastructure. I believe they used to call this Ghent. Ghent didn’t get an arcology. The nearest one is closer to where Antwerp was.”

“Yet some people didn’t do that?”

“The megatowers are more environmentally friendly for sustaining the massive population of the whole planet, but it’s okay if a few choose other methods. North America had their circles, and we had our villages. We lived in arcologies too, just not gigantic ones. We lived on the land, but we didn’t live off of it, instead importing produce from vertical farms. That was my job for a time, pulling the cart of food by bicycle. That’s all I did; just pedaled back and forth from the village to the arc.” He stared at the pond. “Over and over and over and over and over again.” He paused for a few moments. “I got tired of the monotony, so I left. I had studied both history and futurology, so I knew that the villages would die out too. It was only a matter of time before kids like me decided that there were more social options in the towers. I won’t get into how I moved up to become the Futurology Administrator of the whole world, but...I’ll never forget where I came from. This is where my mother died. She wasn’t transhuman, so she only lived for 74 years. My dad underwent some treatments, but he stopped them for her. Unfortunately, I guess, it was too little too late. He still outlived her by 21 years. But not here. After the second to last person left Monarch, he left too, and moved into my cluster in the arc.”

Goswin looked up as if just remembering that he was talking to other people. “For those of you who don’t know, the arcologies are modular. Each unit is the same size, and comes with a baseline configuration, which includes a bathroom. It can be turned into a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, a bedroom, or even a simulacrum of an outdoor space, among other variations. And they can be moved around, so he didn’t move into my cluster of units so much as they literally picked up my one unit, and flew it down to another slot; one that had empty units next to it, which we began to occupy together.”

“Where are we in the timeline?” Eight Point Seven asked him. “Are you still on Earth? Is your father?”

Goswin took a deep breath, and twisted Weaver’s wrist, which sported a watch that always told her the time, even when she traveled through it in the wrong direction, or at the wrong speed. “We were very precise with this jump. My younger self left with my dad fifteen minutes ago. We just had my mother’s burial ceremony.”

“Where’s her grave?” Briar asked.

Goswin actually smiled. “Over here.” He led them down the path a ways.

“Monarch butterflies,” Eight Point Seven pointed out as a few of them began to land on her arms and head.

“Our namesake,” Goswin explained. “Like I was saying, they gave all this back to nature, but they didn’t just let it grow on its own. They planted things on purpose according to a very well thought out ecology algorithm, generated by an entity such as yourself. They decided that Belgium would do well with milkweed, and with milkweed comes Monarch butterflies.” He continued through the trees until coming to another clearing. A gravestone marked the spot where his mother was laid to rest, but it wasn’t altogether necessary. A swarm of monarchs were keeping watch over it.

“It’s beautiful,” Briar couldn’t help but say. He was starting to relax into himself.

“We can’t stay,” Weaver said with a sigh. “We have to go back to the Nucleus.”

Goswin nodded gently, though no one was looking at him; they were still watching the monarchs flutter about. “I know,” he whispered.

“You heard?”

“I may look like a regular human, but I have excellent hearing.”

“Are you prepared to meet your possibly evil self?”

He took a beat, but then answered confidently with, “yes.”

< > Entire Story

Microstory 2125: Is Forever

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

Today was the day that I finally met my parole officer. Now, if you’re reading this from my Earth, which you would only be able to do if my alternate self decided to copy my story onto his own version of the blog, you might be confused. There’s a chance that he’s doing that, I don’t know. If he can still see me in this universe, I still can’t see him, so he wouldn’t be able to get me a message. But if he is doing this, and that’s where you are, then you may be wondering why I have a parole officer. Parole officers are meant to be assigned after someone has gone to prison, and gotten out early. Well, you see, technically that’s exactly what I did. Legally speaking, I was sentenced to three months of prison time. I’m not talking about intermittent jail here. This was a real prison where I should have served time without getting out until I was up for parole. It just so happened that my parole came up immediately, so I didn’t have to actually spend any time in the building. It’s a technicality. Though I never stepped one foot inside, on paper, I was sent to prison, so I’m still entitled to—and am indeed required to meet with—a parole officer while I complete the rest of my sentence, which includes weekend jail. Yes, there was a reason for this. The record shows that I was sent through processing, and had all the paperwork filled out, to inhabit a facility somewhere down south in Missouri. This all comes from a bunch of legal complexities that my attorneys handled for me, but it boils down to minimum sentences, and loopholes that allowed me to subvert those minimums. The reason they did this for me is that, not only did I aid in the recovery of a kidnap victim, but my actions eventually led to the arrest of the suspects. I didn’t know that last part before. They talked about it behind closed doors due to the sensitivity of the case. So you can all rest, assured that the ID makers who committed that crime are being served justice as we speak. All I know is that it’s a federal case, because the girl originated from a state other than Iowa, so someone had to cross a border at some point.

These are all the things that my parole officer explained to me at lunch. I always thought it was weird that I was getting a parole officer, instead of a probation officer, but I don’t know all that much about law and order on any world. He is as cool as I imagined he would be. He’s not one of those types who thinks that anyone who has ever committed a crime is a lifelong criminal, and should be locked up for the duration of that identification. He takes each of his parolees on a case-by-case basis, and says that he modifies his attitude to whatever he thinks will work best for each. He’s even told me that I’m free to reveal to the public what his name is. So here it goes. I’m about to say it. He’s watching me write this, and I’m sure he’ll watch me post it too, so I’m giving him ample opportunity to change his mind. No? In three, two, one. Just a second, he twitched. No, it was a coincidence. Okay, here it is. Leonard Miazga. He has had a long and storied history so far, but I won’t get into all that today, partially because I don’t remember all of it. He smiled and left, and I can’t recall everything he told me about himself. This also means that he won’t be able to stop me from telling you his name anymore. Hopefully he doesn’t change his mind after it posts, because the internet is forever. As for the lunch itself, it was really good. I’m pretty sure he paid for it out of his own pocket, and it’s not something that he can bill to the state. If we ever dine again on another day, I’ll pick up the tab. I got one job offer while we were at the table. If nothing else comes in, I’ll definitely take it, and I may even if all of the other potential employers respond positively. We’ll just have to see. I’m going to try to not make any big life decisions at the end of the week because of the whole jail thing. Tuesdays. Tuesdays are a good day, particularly for me. You don’t ever want to deal with such things at the end or the beginning of a given time period, and Tuesdays are just random enough to work. Anyway, I’m going to take a shower, and get ready to go back inside. Leonard will come back in an hour and a half to drive me down there. I’ll see you Monday, but only if you comment below, and even then, not really. Don’t you hate when TV hosts say that? “We’ll see you tomorrow.” It’s, like...no you won’t. That’s not how TV works. Maybe that’s just me.

Microstory 2124: Suppose Makes Me Sexist

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

Therapy time. Part of my sentence requires that I participate in regular psychological treatment with an approved provider. Interestingly enough, while it’s fine for them to dictate the pool of therapists that I am allowed to choose from, it’s not legal for the court to determine the length of treatment. They can’t tell me how long the sessions should be, or how often they should be, or even how long I have to keep doing it. It seems weird, since the only thing stopping me from only meeting someone once can be found in other sections of the sentence, like the part that discusses making significant and quantifiable improvement in behavior. I could theoretically only go the once, and then just work on myself on my own, but that’s harder to demonstrate, so continued participation is the easiest way to measure progress, for everyone. The therapist doesn’t even have to sign anything to prove that I’m going regularly, or submit reports to the court. It’s basically on the honor system, though my parole officer will be able to give anecdotal evidence one way or another. I’ve spent all day narrowing the list of providers online to see who I might want to speak with, reading their bios, and taking note of their specialties. I immediately ignored all the male therapists, which has made this go a lot faster. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. I just feel more comfortable around women, I always have, especially when it comes to medical professionals. It’s not even a sexual thing, as I’m also attracted to men. I’ve just always found women to generally be more patient, compassionate, and understanding. And also less violent, though that doesn’t mean any professional has ever attacked me, or anything. I just have a preference, which I suppose makes me sexist, but I think it’s okay. The problem with sexism is that it leads to discrimination, and in my case, my feelings are never really to the detriment of others. I’ve never been in charge of hiring anyone, or firing them. If I were, I would easily be able to set this all aside, because it’s really just about how comfortable I am around them. I rarely go out of my way to make myself comfortable, and I recognize that there’s a difference between that and competence, intelligence, or social or professional fitness. Anyway, as per usual, I won’t give you any names, but once I find the right person, I’ll tell you a little bit about her, and will probably be mentioning our work periodically as I continue telling my story.

Microstory 2123: Still Weighing My Options

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

All of my interviews today went pretty well. Most of the interviewers went into it under the assumption that everything on my blog is true, and I am indeed from another universe, allowing me to answer questions about my past experiences in the workforce that didn’t take place in this particular force. They even let me bring up things that I know about my alternate self, who has gone on to have new experiences since we diverged from each other. A few of them were clearly not a good fit for me. I don’t have the skills or education relevant to do the work effectively. I’ll say this, even though it’s a little mean, one of them was obviously confused about what the word “remote” means. No, I can’t go into the office twice a week. That is called a hybrid schedule, and it’s only for local workers. They’re in Utah. I’m not flying down to Utah just so I can remind you that my body extends beyond the lower portion of my chest. I don’t want to go to Utah for any reason. He couldn’t really explain why he ever wanted me to be there in person. They never can—not even just in terms of these interviews, but in general. Companies are losing money on office space by letting people work from home, so to get a better return on their investment, they artificially limit the practice, but they can’t admit that it’s because of that, so they sort of waffle, and come up with bogus reasons about it being better for productivity. Unless you’re in sales (or maybe even if you are) being at work in person for a job that’s performed exclusively on the computer is simply not necessary. Most of the interviewers seemed to understand that, and are eager to draw from a pool of talent outside of a reasonable driving distance. I can’t tell you any specifics about who I spoke with, or who I’m leaning towards. I never will.

All but one of the people I talked to who were still interested after we got past some of these other miscommunications understood that I’m never going to stop blogging. If I end up taking their job, they’ll let me say whatever I want as long as I don’t name names, or place any of their customers or clients in any sort of risk. They’ve all seen that I’ve never done that before. Honest hour? As honest as I am on this thing, I sometimes adjust details to protect the innocent, or even the guilty. I’ve been known to spend hours coming up with a fictional company that I mention only once in a story just to avoid using a brand name. That policy has extended into writing about myself. I’m not making any commitments yet, I’m still weighing my options. Two interviewers had to schedule for tomorrow, and another one had to reschedule for tomorrow, so I still have three more companies to consider, and who still need to consider me. Once those are done, I’ll use my pros and cons charts to organize my choices from most preferred to least interested, and go from there. There’s a chance that the search could go into next week, but I hope to have at least one good offer by then. They were all pretty certain that they would be ready to get started quickly, so I’m figuring only a couple of weeks before I clock in for the first time. One last thing, I’m scheduled to meet my parole officer on Friday. He or she will escort me to the jail for the first time since orientation, not because they don’t trust me, but because it’s procedure for them to personally inspect the facility for the safety of those in their care. They’re either still deciding who will be assigned my case, or they’re just not ready to tell me yet. I’ll let you know how that all goes too.