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| Generated by Google Workspace Labs text-to-image Duet AI software |
“Hello,” Mateo replied. “Do you know someone named Venus Opsocor?”
“She’s a colleague of mine,” Senona answered. “Let me guess, she’s giving
you trouble with the Nexus.”
“We’re trying to leave the galaxy that we’re stuck in, and return to the
Milky Way. She wants us to go to a specific planet.”
“Do you want to hear my advice?”
“Do whatever she says?”
“Pretty much.”
Mateo nodded. “I was afraid you would say that.”
“I know who you are,” Senona went on. “I met your wife, who asked me for
help with an issue you had, so I know that you know the drill. You get one
wish. That wish can be to be sent somewhere other than wherever Venus wants
you to be, but if I were you, I would not waste my one wish on that. I would
pick something else.”
Here again is why Leona should not have picked him to do this. The only
reason she did it was because she already received her wish, and would not
get another. It was up to him to figure out how to resolve this whole
situation, but their issue of only being able to go to Worlon from here was
not the only one. They also needed to help Arcadia and her family get back
to wherever they wanted to go, and the Flindekeldans might need help too.
They prided themselves on being stuck here, but they never really were until
about twenty years ago. They always had a way out, it was just somewhat
difficult to accomplish. And they could have made it impossible for
themselves, but they didn’t, so why not? Why the hypocrisy? And why wasn’t
someone smarter here in his place, like Angela, Marie, or Ramses?
“Oh, I’ve seen this before,” Senona mused.
“You’ve seen what?”
“Some people come here alone, or if they’re not technically alone, they’re
only responsible for themselves. They can choose whatever they want, and not
worry about whether someone will get upset at them for not choosing
something else. But a lot of people here will return home to expectations.
One wish per traveler is a lot of pressure, so one thing I like to tell
people like you is to try to think of something more general. Don’t ask me
for a list of requests, and hope they’ll count as one thing when combined.
Find a wish that helps everyone all at once. For instance, if all of your
friends wished for a good meal, but they don’t like to eat the same thing,
don’t list each one’s favorite foods; just ask me to give everyone whatever
they want to eat. Simple. General. Doable. Obviously that’s a terribly
pedestrian example, but I didn’t want to muddle your desire with something
that is anywhere close to what you might be interested in.”
Simple, general, doable, Mateo thought to himself. That was good advice, but
he still wished he were smart enough to translate it to his situation
better. Ha, maybe he should just literally wish to be smarter. Nah, even if
Senona were capable of that, it would be selfish, and meaningless. Think,
think, think. What would be simple, general, and doable? He had a decent
idea of what Senona could accomplish, and he also knew that they would ask
for a final answer, rather than saddling him with whatever first came to
mind, whether it was good or not.
“Okay,” Senona began, noticing how he was struggling with it. “Let’s switch
gears. Let’s do the opposite of what I just told you. List the things that
you need to accomplish, and I’ll see if I can figure out the wish from
that.”
“Well, my team and I need to get to the Milky Way Galaxy so we can start
helping people all over the Sixth Key with whatever they need. Arcadia and
Vearden need to get their daughter back there too, but so they can keep her
safe, and raise her right. The Flindekeldans, I believe, need access to a
Nexus, but they don’t want it to be too easy to get to.”
“Hm.” Senona thought about it, or maybe they weren’t thinking at all. Maybe
the came to the right answer right away. “Try this: I wish for everyone I
care about to be wherever they truly wish to be.”
“Oh. Will that work? I mean, Baby Cheyenne only lives for one day every
year. They can’t stop it. I’m sure her parents would wish her to not be on
that pattern.”
“Yeah, but we’re talking about space, not time. That would be a different
wish.”
“Right. And how does that move the Nexus? It’s too far away where it is
right now, but it’s not a person, so it doesn’t wish for anything.”
“I can talk to Venus about that. Let’s just call it a bonus. The one wish
rule is not an inherent limitation. I could give you as many wishes as I
want; I just don’t.”
“Because it would set an untenable precedent, I get it.” Mateo thought more
on it, and echoed, “I wish for everyone I care about to be wherever they
truly wish to be. Hmm...is that enough?”
“What more could you ask for?”
“Well, just because I don’t specifically care about someone, doesn’t mean I
don’t want them to be happy.”
“That’s fair.”
“So.”
Senona smirked. “So...”
“I wish for everyone in the entire universe to be wherever they truly wish
to be.”
Their smirk widened into a full smile. “Final answer?”
Mateo thought on it just a little bit longer, then he nodded. “If you can do
it, then yeah...final answer.”
“That’s a good one. It’s a big ask, but yes, I can do it. Might take me
about a year.” They winked at him.
“Thanks for this, and for helping me get there.”
“You got there on your own. You should stop selling yourself short. You’re
not the sharpest tool in the shed, but a hammer isn’t meant to be sharp, yet
it’s just as useful as a carving knife, isn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
Senona nodded. “That console over there can conjure just about anything from
the bulkverse. It’s also a sequence terminal. Just press the symbol for zero
again, and it will return you to your last location whenever you’re ready.”
“Thanks again, Senona.”
“No problem.”
As they were walking back towards the rowboat, Mateo could hear something
move on it. “Is someone else there?” he questioned.
Senona turned back but said nothing. “No,” came a familiar voice from the
dark.
“Holly Blue?” Mateo asked.
Another pause. “No.”
Mateo laughed. “It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone.”
One more delay in the response. “Thanks.”
He could hear them whispering to each other as they rowed into the shadows.
Mateo went over to the console that was sticking out from the platform. It
looked just like the same old dialing pad from any Nexus control room,
except that there was a speaker at the bottom. “Umm...one egg,” he requested
in a funny voice.
A tray slid out from the front like a CD drive in a computer tower. One
hard-boiled egg materialized on it. He cracked it and ate it slowly. “Okay.
A dozen eggs.”
A carton of eggs materialized on the tray.
“Cool. Let’s try something else. A dozen secure subcutaneous transmitters
that allow instant communication across vast distances, including alternate
realities, and parallel universes, which can neither be detected, nor
unwillfully surgically removed.”
A box appeared on the tray. Mateo opened it to find twelve discs and
implanting instructions on a piece of electronic paper affixed to the inside
of the lid. “Yes. These will do. No more secret emotion codes. He was never
gonna be able to learn every letter anyway. This made much more sense. Not
quite telepathy, but they should still be able to hear each other, even at a
whisper. Ramses became so obsessed with coming up with a purely organic
remedy to their weak original bodies that he didn’t think of something as
simple as this.
Mateo thought about asking for other tech, but this was probably enough. He
didn’t want to be greedy, especially since he already wished for all but
world peace. So he pushed the two buttons, and returned to the Nexus
building on Flindekeldan II. All of his friends were waiting there, sitting
on the steps, the floor, and the wraparound ramp that led to the control
room. “Hey, kids.”
“You’re back,” Leona exclaimed. She had been sitting in the control room.
“You wished for Arcadia, Vearden, and Cheyenne to go to Dardius, and to
place Flindekeldan II in orbit around the same host star as Flindekeldan I?”
“Did I?” Yeah, Dardius was a good place for them. They would be safe there.
“Did you?” Olimpia pressed.
“Was that wrong?” He couldn’t speak for these people, per se, but he had a
decent idea of what they wanted, even if they refused to admit it. They
didn’t want a way out, but they also did, or they would have sealed up the
original emergency exit long, long ago. This seemed like a good compromise.
It was hard to reach, but not impossible. You had to work for it, which
meant you had to want it. For anyone who truly wanted to stay on this
planet, all they had to do was ignore the other copy of the planet that was
orbiting on the other side of the sun, which they should never be able to
see anyway.
“Well, it’s just that they don’t have ships of their own. They’ll never make
it here.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing for the last two days?” Ramses asked.
“They’ll keep the Dante as an emergency shuttle. We don’t need it anymore.
Let’s call it a gift.”
“This is a gift too, to you.” Mateo presented the box of communicators.
Ramses took it. “Oh. These were a good idea. Yeah, thanks.”
“I thought you were going to wish for Venus to let us go somewhere other
than Worlon,” Leona said, almost scolding him.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Mateo explained. “We should go. There’s a
reason that she wants us to. I’m willing to trust her. She’s done a lot for
us.”
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