Microstory 2736: Introducing Pribadium!Three

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Pribadium didn’t think that Sora—or anyone, for that matter—would be able to bypass her security protocols, so she doesn’t rush to chase after him. Once she sees him enter the substrate library, however, she grows worried. She immediately tries to teleport into the room with him, but the closest she gets is outside in the hallway. He has managed to not only breach the sector, but lock her out if. How did he do that?

She bangs on the hatch. “How are you doing this?” She bangs on it more.

Sora looks at her through the view window with a frown. He holds up an object so she can see. It’s a cephalobud, and it looks like it’s already been used and spent.

Pribadium invented it a few decades ago. It’s somewhat comparable to other neural drives, except this model can pull information directly from the timestream. It allows a user to download whatever digital data they want into their brains. Unlike other kinds, this will transfer knowledge even if you’re not digitized. It’s very dangerous, especially for a normal human like Sora. Time travelers have different neurology and biology, and that’s who she designed it for. It was kind of a weekend project that she forgot about. He must have found it in her lab, though, when she left him alone earlier.

“Your external security is extremely robust,” Sora explains, “but your internal security is laughable. I didn’t download the secrets of the universe, but I did capture the specs of this base. I thought you might turn on me, and I would need to escape.”

“You’re the one who has turned,” Pribadium argues. “Don’t do this.”

Sora looks around, presumably searching for Pribadium!Two’s next substrate. “I like this one. She looks even less like you than you two before. It will be easier to tell you apart.” He approaches the console, and starts working it like a pro.

“Sora, this isn’t what she wanted. She’s literally gone to a better place. It’s fine.”

“You don’t know that,” Sora responds as he keeps working. “You two split from each other over a year ago, according to her. She and I apparently...” He trails off. “You don’t know her anymore. She was a different person, and I’m going to give her a choice.”

Pribadium shakes her head. “That goes against every principle you have. If you truly felt that way, you would have digitized and enhanced yourself years ago, yet here you are, a totally normal organic human. You of all people should understand our ways.”

“I’m not normal anymore.” He taps on the back of his neck where he would have applied the cephalobud. “Now I know why people do this. It’s better to have power than to not. Even if you don’t use it, it’s better to not let others have power over you.”

Pribadium sees the pod power up. “Don’t! You still have time to undo it!”

Sora hovers his hand over the interface and turns his head to look at Pribadium. “She’ll thank me one day, even if she’s mad now. Elle pense, donc...elle est.” He hits it.

The stasis pod continues to power up as Sora stands back. He watches it as he sidesteps over and unlocks the hatch for who now has to go back to being called Pribadium!One. They both watch now as the IDCode downloads and unpacks itself in the new body, rewiring the neural pathways in realtime to bring Pribadium!Two back to life. This wasn’t part of the plan, but there is nothing to be done about it now. Now that she’s alive, she will want to stay that way, which Sora would probably point out means she always deserved to. Duping is philosophically complex. Millennia after it was first being contemplated, ethicists have still not figured it out.

The pod opens. The new Pribadium!Two climbs out. She regards them. “Report.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 21, 2565

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Things were awkward and tense on Ramosus, though it was no one’s fault. It wasn’t even Romana’s, though she definitely felt like it was. They were in a holding pattern. Ramses believed he had successfully cleared all the corruption in her by flushing her system of all foreign bodies, but they still weren’t going on missions, even though they received two pings from the alert system. They were all saying it was because they were burnt out, but they just wanted to stay and support Romana. Yet that was exactly what she didn’t want. She didn’t want to be coddled or protected, because it just made her feel worse. She clearly had other things on her mind anyway.

Romana was brushing off their concern. She seemed to be more worried about Boyd at this point, which was fine. Mateo would be fine. Ramses had a lot of data on who he really was, and what separated him from any data corruption. Boyd, on the other hand, was a threat—to them, and to himself. She wasn’t even allowed to talk to him.

Mateo was in her room now to check on her. “Hey. I’m not gonna ask you how you’re doing.” He coolly sat down on her bed next to her. “Instead I’ll say...what’s up?”

“We have already talked,” Romana said. “We do not need to go over it all again.”

“That’s why I asked that question,” he pointed out. “You decide on the topic.”

“I wanna talk about those outstanding pings,” Romana decided. “You should go.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Mateo insisted. “Before you say anything, I know you don’t need to be cared for like a little baby, but I think you need to be distracted, and it’s easier to do that if the distraction is being created and controlled by someone else. If you spend all day dwelling on what happened—even unintentionally—it will eat away at you. You run the risk of it becoming part of your personality. You don’t want that, do you?”

“Guilt and regret are facts of life,” she responded. “They serve a necessary function. They prevent future potential mistakes. I don’t wanna dwell, but I don’t wanna forget either. I’m going to spend the appropriate amount of time reflecting on it.”

“I respect that,” Mateo admitted. “And if you really don’t want to do something with me, like play a boardgame, I won’t force it. But I still need to be here as an option, not off on some colony, helping aliens decide where to plant their grapes, or whatever.”

“Someone should respond to the pings,” Romana reasoned. “It might not be the problem of low-stakes garden design. It could be really serious.”

“No, that’s the actual problem,” Mateo explained. “It’s a grape conflict. They don’t know which side of the river is the best, and don’t have time to observe the seasons.”

“Why would the system flag that?” Romana questioned. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Because the computer calculated a high probability of it leading to what will initially appear to be a compromise by planting on both sides. But this grape species is high maintenance, so they will have to live in two separate communities. Years from now, the computer thinks it will start a war. It has apparently run a lot of simulations.”

Romana was annoyed. “So you should go. Why are we arguing about this?”

“That could take decades,” Mateo dismissed. “They will still be there a few days from now. I’m staying here. Again, we don’t have to do anything, but I’m not leaving.”

She sighed. “Yes, you are.” She reached up and slapped the back of his neck.

It stung. He tried to pull it out, but whatever it was burrowed into his skin.

“Boyd helped me build that. You won’t be able to return to Ramosus until you’ve completed whatever task you went there to do. This is my decision as navigator.”

He teleported into the on-base slingdrive, which powered up on its own, and sent him away, along with Ramses and Angela. A second trip took the other three.

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Extremus: Year 139

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Sable has been playing a one-sided game here, which is to be expected, because for the longest time, Silveon was too. A few months ago, Waldemar revealed to her that he had been seeing and interacting with his late wife. Either he is sparse on the details, or Sable didn’t relay everything to Silveon when she told Silveon about it yesterday. He doesn’t know why she waited this long, but he can’t argue with her about it. They have a very fragile partnership, and it’s the only one he has, so he doesn’t want to lose it.

He asked Sable for more information, but she didn’t give it. He doesn’t know how this is changing Waldemar. Their relationship has grown more strained over time as the latter focuses on maintaining his power, and his relationship with Sable. They are probably more or less in a holding pattern, though. He is coming up on a crossroads in his career. In the original timeline, Waldemar threw the rule book out the airlock, and declared himself the One True Captain of Extremus, Eighth of Eight. His acolytes came up with the chant, “eight! Eight! Eight!” When spoken out loud, it sounded like they were saying hate, hate, hate, which in a way, they were very much saying exactly that.

Out of all of their goals, this is the big one. In five years, his and Audrey’s hard work will either pay off, or fail. Will Waldemar do what he did before, or will he follow procedure, and step to the side for a new captain? They were never trying to make him into a saint, but if they can end the tyranny, all of their sacrifices might prove worth it. The question for Silveon right now, though, is who or what is Audrey? He has a decent idea, but he doesn’t want to go digging around to confirm it, because it could mess with what’s happening. He needs to better understand what this Audrey ghost is telling Waldemar, so they know if she’s a threat to the plan, or a boon. It’s gonna be tricky.

“Hey, W,” Silveon says when the door opens for him. “What’s up?”

“What did you want, Sil?” Waldemar questions. He doesn’t sound happy, but he doesn’t sound mad either. He’s concentrating on whatever is on his table at the moment.

This is where Silveon has to be careful. If the Audrey who Waldemar is seeing isn’t the least bit real—like a temporal echo from the past, or a mental projection—and if Waldemar knows that it’s only in his head, Silveon’s next words will be an obvious lie. He might be able to save face, but it depends on the wording he chooses. “I wanted to talk to someone, and I think you’re the only one who may understand. You cared about her as much as I; or more, rather. I can’t trust anyone else.”

Waldemar freezes but stays on his tablet. “Cared about who?”

“Audrey,” Silveon answers. “I’ve been...seeing her. Kind of in the corner of my eye? She doesn’t talk. I thought it was only in my head, but it’s just too real. She’s older, ya know? She’s aged like us even though she’s been gone for so long already. I dunno, I mean, my brain could certainly conceive of that, but stranger things have happened too. Maybe...maybe it’s real. Do you think she could be real?”

Waldemar stares at the man who he once called a friend, and is now becoming a stranger by the day. He stares for a long time. “Of course not, Silveon. Audrey’s dead. Time travel is illegal. It’s the only set of laws I never touched. Go see a psychologist.”

Shit. Their trust is gone completely. Well, at least he’s not angry, or becoming violent. Still, he’s playing this close to the vest, which means that Sable remains the only hope they have of getting through to him, and averting his dark fate.

Silveon shakes his head, bids his farewell, then respectfully bows out of the room.

He returns to his own quarters, defeated. Life should have an undo button.

“Hey,” a voice says from behind him. It’s Audrey. “We need to talk.”

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Microstory 2735: The Dead Do Die

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Sora gently takes Pribadium!One by the arm. “Wait, no. Don’t go out there.”

“I have to,” she explains. “I know what it is, but I have to see for myself.”

“Just have a robot go out to retrieve it for you,” he insists.

“There’s too much interference,” she claims. “That’s the whole problem. Organic eyes need to see it for us to know what happened, and what’s happening now.”

“Which is more likely?” Sora questions. “That there’s some kind of signal jammer between us and whatever’s out there, or that something there disables technology?”

Pribadium sighs. “I suppose that makes sense.” She pauses to think about it. “I will send a drone, and if we lose contact with that, we’ll cut our losses and move on.”

“I think that would be a much better idea,” he decides.

They don’t lose contact with the drone. It doesn’t have to get too close to the dimensional barrier. When it arrives, it shows that Pribadium!Two’s shuttle isn’t the only thing drifting around. All of the probes they dispatched prior to the manned mission are nearby. They’re all dead. The equipment is dead, the ship is dead, and Pribadium!Two is dead. She could not have possibly survived that; not in that body. The shuttle is entirely twisted—no, it’s unraveled, like peeling a citrus fruit in one single cut.

Pribadium!One—or should she just go by Pribadium now?—pulls up her privileged vault. Vonearthans share knowledge in a series of databases collectively known as the central archives. Since time travel isn’t common knowledge, travelers keep their own records on special drives that only they can access. It’s vital to keep this information separate and protected. “I think I’ve seen this before.” She stops, because she doesn’t know what to search for. “What was it? Corkscrew? Coil? No, spiral.” She runs the search, and pulls up the lone entry. “Spiral Station. It doesn’t say why they designed it that way. It doesn’t even say what it’s for. But this must be why. It must have been unraveled by quintessence. Whoever these people are, they have bulk tech.”

“You don’t know who they are?” Sora asks. “Your database doesn’t say anything?”

“It only observes that it exists, and knows the name. It says nothing else.”

“But if it’s operational then maybe she survived her unraveling,” Sora offers.

“That thing was gigantic,” Pribadium explains. “If people survived, it’s because there was enough room in the empty interior spaces. The shuttle was far too small.”

“Okay, so what about her back-up? I know where your body library is, so let’s go and bring her back online. That’s the whole point of that place.”

Pribadium sighs. “I would have gotten an alert that her mind was transmitted back to us. Something went terribly wrong out there. The drone is gathering data, which we will synthesize. She didn’t die for nothing, I’ll tell you that.”

“No. Even if she wasn’t streaming until the very last second, she would still have a back-up, because she was streaming any number of seconds prior to that,” he reasons.

“That’s not what she wants. I know, because she was me. The stream must end at the same millisecond of death. If there is any gap, it’s not really her. It’s only a very convincing copy.” The only hope they have of getting her back is if she managed to survive it, and ends up in Fort Underhill. That won’t happen for some time, though. She will go to the afterlife simulation first, and Pribadium doesn’t have access to that system. “Trust me, I know myself. Our personal protocol is to destroy all lingering IDCode.”

“I refuse to accept that.” Sora runs off. Towards the substrate library.

Microstory 2734: The Cost of Time

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They realized something after Pribadium!Two shot Sora, dispatching him to the holding cell in an instant. This has to be a manned mission, because somebody needs to get eyes on that barrier, but that person doesn’t have to die permanently if something goes wrong. They just need to be streaming their consciousness to the base, which both Pribadiums are doing all the time anyway. It is Sora who figures this out, which is embarrassing. It’s not that he’s too dumb, but they should have realized it ahead of time. Smart people sometimes get so laser-focused on what they’re doing, and iterating the work as needed, they can forget the more obvious solutions in front of them. Well, if he understands that, she can let him out. He’s not going to cause trouble.

Sora sighs as he’s stepping out. “So, which one of you is going to go out there?”

“She will,” Pribadium!One explains. “We flipped a coin...an actual, physical coin.”

He nods. “I notice that you two look a little different now.”

“Yes,” Pribadium!One begins. “This was my birth form. I sometimes make adjustments, or just wear entirely different forms. I have a whole library of substrates to pick from. I realized it might be confusing for you, so I changed.”

He chuckles once as he’s shaking his head. “You people switch bodies like I would my hats. I know, it’s commonplace for you, but it’s hard to get used to. No one on Proxima Doma or Doma Tertia would ever dream of such...”

“Of such a brazen and thoughtless attitude towards what you consider to be the core of your being?” Pribadium!One guesses.

“Flexibility,” Sora clarifies. “I was going to say flexibility.”

She nods. “I’m sorry she threw you in here. She didn’t have to do that. It’s not like you could have overpowered us and snuck off the base alone. You don’t have any authorization codes... Anyway, it wasn’t right, and I hope we can still be friends.”

Sora smiles. “We once were enemies. It feels like years ago, but it’s been a day.”

“I never thought of us as enemies, Mr. Shimizu,” Pribadium!One explains. “You must understand that while what you and your people were trying to do was unique, that’s what my job is. People have all sorts of complaints. Back when the post-scarcity society was first blossoming, access accelerated rapidly. What once cost became totally free. It became an expectation. But post-scarcity doesn’t mean no economy. Energy credits were devised because energy and raw material are the only things that matter in the universe. Because they both give you time. People come to Gatewood expecting to get whatever they want with no limitations, but it’s more nuanced than that. I sit through many negotiations. I’ve never been taken hostage before, but...”

He’s bashful. “I’m sorry about that. I guess I shouldn’t complain about being in there for all of five minutes when I kept you locked up for weeks.”

“I forgive you,” Pribadium!One promises.

Pribadium!Two appears on screen. “I forgive you too, and I’m sorry too.”

“Thank you,” Sora replies. He breathes to reset. “So, are you ready to launch?”

“I just need the authorization from the quote-unquote real Pribadium.”

Pribadium!One tilts her head. “You have the greenlight. Godspeed.”

“God is dead.” Pribadium!Two’s shuttle launches and heads for the barrier.

Only a couple hundred meters from the dimensional barrier, the base loses contact with it. Then a bogey shows up on sensors on the opposite side of the bubble.

Microstory 2733: The Cost of a Life

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The Pribadiums have been hard at work for the last three days. They have been performing, checking, and rechecking calculations. They have been running simulation after simulation after simulation. They have sent probes out to scan, analyze, and synthesize. And now they have a better picture of their situation. The first probes told them how expansive the pocket dimension bubble was. These more recent probes are telling them how big it is now, and those figures are not the same. It’s shrinking. At this rate, the window of opportunity will close by the end of the week. Well, they wanted to know their time constraints, and now they have them. That is only part of the puzzle, though. What happens to people and objects who pass back out?

Or are they passing through the dimensional barrier at all? Their intuition suggests that they are, because the Pribadiums are losing contact with the probes, but that doesn’t mean they’re slipping safely through. It might be vaporizing them, shunting them somewhere else, or simply generating too much interference to maintain the connection. Someone is going to have to go out there and gather more information.

“I volunteer as tribute,” Sora says.

Pribadium!One chuckles. “That won’t be necessary. We’ll flip a coin.”

“I’m serious,” Sora insists. “If something happens to me, it’s no big deal. I only have maybe a hundred years left in this universe anyway. If one of you dies, you’re losing eternity. Besides, you’re more valuable than I am. Really, I wanna do this.”

“Well, if we’re going by a simple value analysis, we have an excess of Pribadiums,” Pribadium!Two says. “If I go, my alternate is still here, and we’ve not lost anything.”

Pribadium!One rolls her eyes at her alternate self, and doesn’t validate her words. She faces Sora. “This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with Elke, would it?”

“Elke?” Sora asks. “I told you, I’ve moved past that. You telling me what happens when you die has given me closure. That’s why it doesn’t scare me to do this, because I know whatever happens, I’ll survive. I didn’t realize I was digitized, and I’ve been grumpy about it, but we might as well take advantage. It sounds like you can’t come back, or dead people would be doing it all the time. So you should stay.” He looks at Pribadium!Two. “Both of you. Two heads are better than one if they’re both you, right?”

“I’m the one who said that,” Pribadium!One reminds him.

“Same result,” Sora reasons. “And anyway, death isn’t a guarantee. It’s a test.”

Pribadium!Two shakes her head. “Survival is what is not guaranteed. The afterlife simulation is based on a certain set of criteria. In order for your consciousness to be transmitted to it, you have to both originate from the main sequence, and be in the main sequence. I’m guessing you qualify for the former, but not necessarily the latter. That’s one thing we would be testing out there with this manned mission. The bottom line is that you may not end up in the sim, or in Fort Underhill. The risk is real.”

“Again, that is how I have always lived,” Sora explains. “I never thought I was going to live forever. There is a freedom in that which you have either forgotten, or are too young to remember. I’m part of a long history of doomed souls. I’m proud of that.”

Pribadium!Two nods. She pulls down her pants and removes a teleporter dartgun from a flap of skin on her hip.

“You always had that?” Pribadium!One was surprised. “You could have escaped.”

“Yes,” Pribadium!Two confirms. “But he won’t be able to.” She shoots him.

Microstory 2732: Tree of Thought

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Pribadium gives Sora a go in the equilibrium chamber. He likes it because anyone can use it, whether they have been biologically or technologically enhanced, or not. It doesn’t even have to be alive. Bulk forces act on every object with the force equal to its mass. This allows everything to stay in place unless moved by some other force. Sora places his cup of tea in front of him and to the side, as if there were a table there, and it stays. Gravity doesn’t exist here, atmospheric pressure doesn’t either. It doesn’t move until he reaches back for it. He even leaves it upside down, and it’s fine. He says that he forgot to have fun. Elke’s arrival, while it sparked love in him, was filled with so much anxiety and longing that he stopped enjoying daily life. He spent all of his time focused on her, both before and after her death. He can barely recall what his hobbies were. He would have loved to play in an equilibrium chamber back then, probably. Since he’s no scientist, he goes off to another area of the outpost to find his bliss.

Pribadium!One and Pribadium!Two, meanwhile, have work to get through. Their mission is to pull this small pocket of space out of the universe entirely, and let it exist as its own miniature universe. Once there, they will be able to travel to other branes, just like The Crossover or Zoey Attar. They will be able to adjust their own laws of physics, and explore new worlds. They will break new ground. Neither of them has ever done this before, but Pribadium!Two has more experience. She offered to transmit the memories and knowledge into Pribadium!One’s brain, but the latter declined. She wants to be herself, and not mix each other together.

“No, that’s not gonna work,” Pribadium!Two warns over her shoulder.

Pribadium!One sighs. “I’m starting an arboreal progression. I’ve not yet gotten to the pruning stage. Do you not remember how we work? How much have you changed?”

“No, I remember the arboreal technique. I just didn’t think you needed to start with a seed, since I already have a ton of hard data over here,” Pribadium!Two argues.

“Yes, I saw your data, but you were mostly looking at it from the main sequence. Now we’re in the new parallel. We have to start from scratch. We can compare notes later. But that won’t be until after my tree grows, after I prune it, and after I climb it.”

“After we climb it,” Pribadium!Two tries to correct.

“No, I want to climb it myself. It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s that I’m trying to keep my work contained and isolated, so it stands up to future testing. I don’t want to be biased by your research. The very basis of science is reproducible results. If I can’t reproduce them without looking at your results first, they won’t hold up. In fact, why don’t you go down to the aux lab, so we don’t even occupy the same space.”

“Why would I go to the aux lab? I’m the one who needs the main servers for the simulations. You’re still a seedling!” Pribadium!Two contends

“Oh, the servers down there are fine,” Pribadium!One reasons dismissively.

Pribadium!Two shakes her head. “No, I have been upgrading the primaries.”

“You have?” Pribadium!One pushes her alt self aside to check her workstation. “Goddammit, I didn’t give you permission to make changes. Now I’ll need to reconfigure all of my preferences. Just because you technically have credentials, doesn’t mean you should use them. This is my lab. Yours is in another reality. Please respect that.”

“I suppose we need to come up with some ground rules before we proceed.”

“I suppose we do,” Pribadium!One agrees.

Microstory 2731: The Choices We Make

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Pribadium!Two offered to explain to Sora what happened to his alternate self, but he decided that he didn’t want to hear it, at least not right now. They all three split apart, and went to their separate corners. They need to decompress from everything going on, and process all the new information. If they miss their window to create a mobile pocket universe, then so be it. It was never going to be an instantaneous endeavor, and it’s prudent to wait a bit anyway. This is a huge undertaking, which will have massive ramifications in this universe, and who knows how many others?

Pribadium!One is lying in her equilibrium chamber now, thinking about Sora. When they first met, he was a clear opponent. She was trying to get him to calm down and see reason, but she never thought she would feel bad for him like this. The story he told about his crush on Proxima Doma was heartbreaking. She teased him with the chance to get some closure, and then about immediately took it away from him. It wasn’t fair, and she’s going to have to figure out a way to apologize for it, besides simply literally saying the words. He obviously needs some space right now, though.

A door alert. It’s Sora. When she commands the AI to open the door, he walks in. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were sleeping. I can come back later.”

“No, it’s okay.” Pribadium!One stands up and hangs there mid-air.

His eyes widen. “How are you doing that? I thought antigravity was impossible.”

She lowers her legs one by one like she is climbing down a ladder, towards what’s considered down. “It’s not really antigravity, per se. Though, I suppose we could make that happen too if I figure out how to contain quintessence. I have some friends who built a machine that uses it, but it was awkward between us, so I never got the chance to study it in depth. Anyway, no, this is an equilibrium chamber. Another friend of mine developed it, and now they use it extensively on Varkas Reflex. People stay in simulated environments for years on end. This perfectly distributes the pressure on your body, so you don’t suffer the negative health effects of extended immobility.”

Sora stares at the apparatus, curious enough, but obviously not really thinking about it. Their goals are unaligned, and one of them might have to relent one day.

It’s not just about him, though. He’s not the only person they have to worry about. Thousands of colonists who just so happened to be on this side of the host star have the right to decide what to do with their own lives too. She’s just glad that most people escaped the bubble. She placed her lab away from the activity even though it placed her in the line of fire of the upcoming obliteration blast, because she knows exactly when it will arrive, and has ways of avoiding it. Now that doesn’t matter anymore. “Did you want to talk about something?” she asks as she’s stepping out.

“I don’t need to talk to Elke,” he answers. “Before you say anything, I realized that she made her choice. Whatever her reasons, I wasn’t worth sticking around for. We knew each other for years. Her suicide took years, but she never gave up. If she survived it—if she didn’t end up killing herself again on the other side, then that still has nothing to do with me. It never did. So you two go ahead and do whatever you need to do with the weird universe thing. I’m not much help, but I’ll be here. I’ll support you.”

“This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with what she said about us?”

“About how we were together in another timeline? No. This is my choice.”

“Okay,” Pribadium!One says. “I’ll speak to my alternate self in the morning.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: September 20, 2564

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Time was weird in Romana’s simulation. Ramses and Leona worked the problem for the better part of three days before they were able to get Mateo and Boyd out of there. And they did get Boyd out of there too. They didn’t have a physical body for him to inhabit, since they didn’t know his wishes, but they moved his IDCode to a new server, and isolated him from Romana’s original system. They then ran a bunch of diagnostics on him, and medical tests on Mateo, to determine whether there were any lingering risks associated with them having been trapped in there.

Romana was devastated, but otherwise all right. Beyond her artificial implants, she wasn’t presenting any other signs or symptoms. She appeared to be physically and neurologically healthy. Still, Ramses extracted the implants, and flushed her of any dangerous foreign bodies. It was a relatively simple procedure, because it was one of the first things immersive VR researchers came up with, under the concern that something like this could happen. The only reason they didn’t do that earlier was because of her visitors. She was not saying much, save for apologizing profusely. It wasn’t her fault.

Mateo was pissed. Someone did this to her. It could not have simply happened incidentally. Glitches did happen, of course, but there was too much intent from the monsters. They were far too organized and driven. Of course, Mateo still didn’t know what they would have done if they had caught up to the humans, because they didn’t give them the chance, but they certainly weren’t trying to say hello, and they weren’t random. When he found whoever was responsible, they were gonna wish they had targeted someone else.

“That may not be what happened,” Leona said. “It may not have been an attack.”

“You didn’t see them,” Mateo argued. “They were absolutely relentless. Boyd and I literally had to keep running. Thank God I was able to shut off some of my bio-responses, or I would have grown too tired to make it.” He shook his head.

“The blobs,” Leona began. “Why did they chase after you at all? If they were a part of the system, why not simply materialize right in front of you. You didn’t actually run anywhere. You were only ones and zeros, as were the blobs themselves.”

“Exactly,” Mateo reasoned. “They weren’t a part of it. That’s how I know someone put them in there. It couldn’t have been your average file corruption, or whatever.”

“I have another hypothesis,” Ramses jumped in. “I think it could have been natural and unintentional. I think they were a part of her, but not the simulation.”

“What, like her antibodies, or her stress hormones?” Mateo questioned.

“Something like that,” Ramses went on. “Do you remember when Romana was abducted by the original Boyd? He placed her in a dark particle stasis field.”

“Yeah, it changed her,” Mateo said. “It made her just like him. That’s over now.”

“Perhaps not,” Ramses suggested. “I’m still detecting periodic neutrino collisions inside of her body, and in yours. It would be nothing to be worried about, it means your bodies can handle it. But it looks like her mind is being negatively impacted.”

“Well, she’s been dark particle-free for weeks, and nothing. What’s changed?”

Ramses frowned at Mateo sadly, but didn’t say anything. He looked nervous.

“Me,” Mateo surmised. “I visited her simulation. I have lingering dark particle-ness too.” He had to sit down. “I did this to her.”

“It’s not your fault either. It’s just nature,” Leona said comfortingly. “It could also be this star system. Different stars, different solar flux.”

“Fix this,” Mateo demanded. “Do whatever you have to do, even if it hurts.”

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Extremus: Year 138

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Waldemar and Sable are back together. It has been long enough since Audrey died that the people of Extremus accept the new relationship, so they can be public about it. Yes, she’s young. The crew and passengers do notice that, but they wouldn’t dare say anything to his face. He doesn’t want people to talk about them behind their backs either, but he can’t stop that. Well, he probably could. He could have the AI that runs the systems track everyone’s conversations, and make sure they’re only saying nice things, but he won’t do that. The old version of him might have, but he’s different now. He still doesn’t have real emotions, but he knows if he takes away all of their freedoms, then his popularity rating will drop down to zero, and he won’t keep his job. Maybe in a few years once the second phase of the master plan begins.

Other than his personal life, nothing noteworthy is happening, at least not that he can be honest about. The ghost of his late wife still haunts him, and not in a metaphorical way. She shows up when he’s alone, and talks to him. It’s torture. He knows it could be worse. She’s not screaming in his ears while he’s trying to sleep, or singing the same song over and over again. What she does is basically give him advice. She acts just Audrey did when she was physically here, except now he can’t even get on top of her like he used to.

No, the problem with it is that he doesn’t have a choice. He can’t leave the room unless he wants to surround himself with others. She won’t leave. A part of him doesn’t want her to, but a part of him does. He obviously can’t tell anyone about it, because it will make him look unfit for the chair. He can’t trust Silveon, and his rekindling with Sable isn’t where it should be yet. When the—

“Stop. No one cares about this.” It’s Audrey again. She just appears out of nowhere sometimes. It can be really annoying.

“What are you goin’ on about now?” Waldemar questions.

“You’re dwelling on your situation,” Audrey explains. “Your thoughts are not interesting, which makes sense, because the story is not interesting right now. The beginning of this volume had a lot of action and intrigue, and the end of it will too, but right now, The Superintendent is in the middle of focusing on other projects, so he doesn’t have time to write this whole thing about your fake fee-fees and hallucinations.”

Waldemar stands there midstride, holding a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. A single drop of the milk sprang out of it when Audrey first showed up, and is currently running down the back of his hand as another form of irritation. He wants to stop and lick it up, but he’s worried he’ll look stupid in front of the ghost. Can you believe it? Feeling self-conscious before someone who you don’t even respect. If only—

“I said stop!” Audrey argues. “Stop trying to create a story where there is none. He’s gonna cut this short, and move on. Maybe he’ll have more time next week.”

“I’ve had enough of this.” Waldemar carelessly drops both the plate and the glass on the floor to let the cleaning bots deal with it. He taps on his wrist band until he finds what he’s looking for. Or rather, who he’s looking for.

Sable appears on the floor. She’s half-naked, crouched in an awkward position.

“What were you doing?” Waldemar asks. “Having sex?”

“Uh, no. Yoga?” Sable claims, probably lying. She stands up. “I don’t appreciate being summoned like this. You may be the captain, and I may be your girlfriend, but—”

“I’ve been seeing the ghost of my dead wife. For years. And I need your help.”

She stares but he can’t say what she’s thinking. “Fascinating. Tell me everything.”

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Microstory 2730: Time Spent

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Time may be an important factor. It is hard to tell how delicate their position is. The dimensional barriers could snap under the gravitational and quintessential weight as the two opposing forces fight each other for supremacy, with the Gatewood Collective caught in the middle. Pribadium!Two believes that their laboratory sits on the very edge of the unique spatial bubble that the star system is in. She selected this secret location specifically because of its distance from everyone and everything else.

“Why wouldn’t it be in the center? This is where the time machine is,” Sora notes.

“Exactly,” Pribadium!Two agrees. “It was not omnidirectional. The spatial warping spread out from here, towards the gravitational barycenter of the system, which is in Barnard’s Star. That’s why half the system isn’t in the pocket universe.”

Sora regards her in disgust for a moment before redirecting his attention to Pribadium!One. “So you just let her out of her cell, and we trust her now?”

“She’s helping us. We need her,” Pribadium!One explains. “Sorry to brag, but two heads are better than one if they’re both my head.”

Sora scoffs. “She’s the one who told me that I couldn’t speak with Elke.”

“For now, it’s true,” Pribadium!Two starts to say.

Sora holds up a dismissive hand. “I was talking to the real Pribadium.”

“She’s right,” Pribadium!One explains. “It’s not just a calibration issue. If we disturb the balance that we have managed to achieve here, it could all fall apart.”

Pribadium!Two nods. “Yeah, and—”

“Zip it,” Sora interrupts again. “What exactly does that mean? What happens if it falls apart? Do you mean we all die? Because you don’t seem too distressed about it.”

Pribadium!One sees how Sora is treating her alternate self, but she feels compelled to ignore it, and answer his question. “People here will be fine, as long as the star stays inside of the pocket too, which I don’t see why it wouldn’t. It’s holding every atom together so the quintessence doesn’t pull it apart. What we’re trying to do is create a permanent equilibrium, and to do it in an extradimensional realm called the bulk.”

“I don’t care about that. I want to see Elke again, I want to reunite with my people, in whatever reality it is, and I want us to settle down in a new home,” he reasons.

Pribadium!Two starts to talk as quickly as she can. “And you can still do that—”

“I don’t wanna hear from you again!” Sora shouts. “Your opinion doesn’t matter!”

“Hey,” Pribadium!One jumps in. “Sora, I know you got some rest, and that put you back to your old self, which I find...incredibly annoying, but I have seen a kinder version of you. You have it in you to show respect at all times. You’re not Mr. Hyde.”

“I don’t know who this Hyde guy is, but this is the real me,” Sora contends. “This is who I am. The man I am when I’m tired is weak, and a pushover. I hate him. He’s—”

“Thirteen months,” Pribadium!Two interrupts, giving him his own medicine.

“What?” Pribadium!One questions.

Pribadium!Two looks directly at Sora. “We were together for thirteen—I mean, we weren’t together. We...well, we weren’t nothing. I just mean...I didn’t know how much time we needed to fix the past, so I intentionally overshot it. We spent over a year making sure that the Teaguardians never had any reason to destroy Doma Tertia.”

“Then where am I now?” Sora pressed. “You never did say. I find that—”

“You’re dead! You sacrificed yourself!” Pribadium!Two breathes. “For me.”

Microstory 2729: Mobile Command Center

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Pribadium!One didn’t really wait nearly a month to get back to her alternate self in the cell. She just wanted Pribadium!Two to think that she was going to be in there for that long, so she would be more grateful when the conversation restarted after only a few days. They’re back here now, on either side of the clear plasma barrier.

“Tell me the problem,” Pribadium!One prompts. “Why can’t I use my tech?”

“It’s not that you can’t use our tech, full stop,” Pribadium!Two begins. “It’s that you can’t cross any dimensional barriers. As I was saying before, the new parallel reality was created from a brane collision. That is an entirely different beast than the anti-paradox reality generation that the other parallels went through. We’re skirting at the very edge of the quintessential membrane. Parts of this reality are actually inside, including your lab, which is why time is frozen here.”

Pribadium!One balks. “What are you talking about? Time is frozen?”

“You didn’t notice?” Pribadium!Two questions. “What have you been doing?”

“Not using my tech!” Pribadium!One argues. “You told me not to!”

“I thought you would at least try to diagnose the issue!” Pribadium!Two groans. “Time and metabolism have halted. Sora could stay here forever, and never age or die. The entirety of Gatewood is completely inaccessible to the rest of the universe, even within this same reality. The most recent interstellar cycler has lost all navigational frames of reference. It’s like the star system vanished. That’s why I’m trying to get you to not cross any more barriers. It could split it even more, and cause even more chaos.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely a possibility,” Pribadium!One agrees. It could obviously be a problem, but it could also be an opportunity. Her alternate self would have known that, which is why she didn’t warn her about the dangers straight away. She needn’t worry, though. This Pribadium will do her due diligence. She will not only find a way out of this, but make the most out of their unique position. “So what do we do? What did you come here to do? Get us out of the pocket of quintessence? Pull the realities back together? Kill every alt of yours until you become the fabled One?”

Pribadium!Two shakes her head. “I’m here to sever the connection.”

“The connection between realities? To what end?”

Pribadium!Two is quiet. Perhaps their point of divergence wasn’t too dramatic. They still had the same neurological wiring. They would’ve come up with the same ideas.

Pribadium!One nods. “You don’t just want to cut the link. You want to control it. You want to create a pocket universe, like the Sixth Key, but less crowded.”

Pribadium!Two still says nothing, but they have the same poker face.

“But you can’t do that as long as this pocket of space is connected to reality, even a parallel. And if I cross over to another dimension, it won’t work. Our pocket will probably just slip back fully into the membrane, and the advantage will disappear.”

Pribadium!Two sighs. “You know me too well.”

“That’s why it was so tough for you to get here, and why you barely made it,” Pribadium!One guesses. “You had to brute force your way in without breaking the seal.”

“Don’t you see what this means?” Pribadium!Two asks. “This wouldn’t be the only pocket universe in existence, but it would be the first free-floating miniature brane that we know of. It would be mobile. We could go anywhere in the bulk.”

“Like a spaceship.” Interesting suggestion...but what about all the people?

Microstory 2728: Talking to Yourself

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This. This is why Pribadium doesn’t like to travel through time, because it causes headaches. Just because someone looks like you, doesn’t mean they share your values. Even if you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are a version of you, you might not be able to trust them. They have been through different experiences. Even if you literally split from each other moments ago, one of you was standing on the left, while the other was on the right. That may not seem like much to a human observer, but that can alter your whole perspective, and with each passing second, the differences only compound. Many time travelers recommend not seeing your alternates as that at all, but as entirely distinct people. Trust, but verify, as you would a stranger.

With Sora’s help, Pribadium!One has locked Pribadium!Two in a special holding cell. Since she’s the one who created it, one might assume that she has a way out of it; that she knows its secrets. It doesn’t work like that. Pribadium knew that something like this could happen. It was designed with that in mind, which is why the codes are random. She didn’t think she would ever have to use this feature, but it was always a possibility. She can’t risk the other her finding a way out just by drawing from their memories. One of them is the prisoner, and one of them is the warden. Only the warden has the code, and it was given to her as soon as that door shut tight.

“Are you going to give me the chance to explain myself?” Pribadium!Two asks.

“What good would that do?” Pribadium!One snaps back. “We’re a liar.”

“You used the collective singular there,” Pribadium!Two points out, “yet you’re othering me at the same time. You can’t have it both ways, so to speak. Hear me out.”

“You threatened to kill me, and now you want me to talk and listen to reason? Oh, honey. Our point of divergence must have been more significant than I knew.”

“I was never going to kill you,” Pribadium!Two contends. “I just wanted to shock you for a sec, so you wouldn’t simply roll your eyes and use the communicator anyway.”

“And look where that got you,” Pribadium!One points out, pointing at the cell.

Pribadium!Two shakes her head. “But it worked, didn’t it? Now you can’t use that communicator because you’re wondering what might be worse than me killing you.”

“But you just said that—”

“It doesn’t matter that I was lying,” Pribadium!Two reasons. “You can’t take that risk. You’re too smart for that. So tell me, do you want me to explain why you can’t use that communicator, regardless of whether you calibrate it for the reality that we’re in?”

Pribadium!One shakes her head again. She doesn’t know what to do in this situation. Hearing her out could do damage, even if it’s only words. Still. Even if the only reason Pribadium!Two doesn’t want her to try it is because it might reveal that this is the main sequence, and the rightful reality in the universe, it’s not a great reason. They would work it out. She wouldn’t let the other reality die. They’re not monsters. Right?

“I can practically see the gears turning in your head,” Pribadium!Two muses. “Have a seat, and I’ll explain. It’s not only about the transversal communicator.”

Pribadium!One stares at her alternate self. It probably won’t hurt to hear the explanation, but she can’t give someone who threatened her life the satisfaction. “When we were down on Doma Tertia, Sora left me in a cell alone for twelve days.”

“No,” Pribadium!Two argues, knowing where this is going.

“I will see you in twenty-four.” Pribadium!One leaves.

Microstory 2727: False Convictions

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Sora stares at Pribadium for a moment. “We can’t use your machine to go back in time to stop the Teaguardians from destroying the world, but we can do it to visit my dead friend?” He shakes his head at the apparent contradiction.

“We don’t need a time machine for that,” Pribadium!One notes. “Do you remember how she was talking about other universes; how ours crashed into another?”

“Yes,” Sora confirms.

“I don’t know what universe that would have been,” Pribadium!One begins, “but it’s not the only one—not by a long shot. In fact, a couple of them are our siblings. One of these universes, which are known as branes, was named Fort Underhill. Its, uhh...” She hesitates. She’s not really supposed to talk about this stuff to the humans. That’s an antiquated word, but it just refers to people who don’t know about things like temporal manipulation or psychic abilities. But that ship has sailed, so she might as well go for it. “Fort Underhill is where you go when you die. Actually, you go to a virtual simulation first, but at some point, you get moved to the other brane, which is in base reality.”

Sora stares at her again, narrowing his eyes. “Who goes to this place when they die? Your mind? Immortals like Tertius Valerias and Aeterna Valeria?”

“No, everybody,” Pribadium!One clarifies. She sighs. “You may think you’re undigitized, but you’re not. You were born this way. I can’t explain the biology, I never got much into it, but it’s part of how humans are. We’ve been this way for millennia.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “No! No, it’s not true. If humans have always been digitized, we would know. We would have to.”

“I think we kind of did,” Pribadium!One says. “I don’t know how well you know your history, but when researchers were first trying to figure out how to do it, they made a quantum leap in progress. It was the most apropos use of that term ever. It was when they proved that consciousness existed in the quantum realm, and I think this is why.”

Sora stands, and starts to pace out of frustration. “So my convictions—my refusal to become like all of you—they mean nothing? I can’t die anyway? Elke isn’t dead?”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” she explains. “That was some time ago, and I believe there is a way to die for good in Fort Underhill, but that would be a choice.”

“Yet you have some unique way of contacting the dead?” Sora scoffs.

“I know people in high places.” She’s friends with the people who are responsible for it, but she has never told them that she found a way to access it. She kind of thought they might find out eventually, and when time travel is involved, eventually is synonymous with always. They have never brought it up, though she has had to use it on occasion. There was one time where a man from Castlebourne asked her to reunite an undigitized friend of his with her dead parents. They evidently gave her advice, and now that woman is an immortal flying superhero. So she doesn’t take this for granted.

“It won’t work,” Pribadium!Two says. She’s opening the medical pod, and slowly making her way out of it. “As I told you, this is a parallel reality. Your interversal communicator was calibrated to the main sequence.”

“Good point,” Pribadium!One says. “That would prove if you’re telling the truth.”

“If?” Pribadium!Two questions. “I definitely am.”

“Well, we’ll see about that.” Pribadium!One walks over to the communicator.

Pribadium!Two violently grabs her wrist. “If you try, I’ll have to kill you.”